A Call to be Radical for Jesus

by Jael SC · July 24, 2017

Radical.

In modern usage, the word tends to have a negative connotation, be it because of violent extremists or mouthy pundits. But the origin of the word is from the Latin word “radix,” or root. To be radical is to embrace the roots of something, to have a secure foundation that fosters growth.

So it is that we’ve been called to radical Christianity and to radical missionary discipleship.

To be radical missionary disciples, we must go to the peripheries of our culture and our faith to bring the Gospel to whoever is open to listening. It’s a step toward that Pope Francis calls a “‘missionary option’ that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelisation of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.”

We also must express radical joy and radical hospitality.

Our joy must replace the temptation “which stifles boldness and zeal is a defeatism which turns us into querulous and disillusioned pessimists, ‘sourpusses,'” as mentioned in “Evangelii Gaudium,” (“The Joy of the Gospel”). After all, nobody likes miserable people.

The radical call to hospitality means welcoming the stranger as we would our families. It means ending the divisions of our communities, our parishes and our church. It means rejecting complacency and getting out of our comfort zones to engage and encounter those we might normally avoid. And it means being “hospitable to one another without complaining.” (1 Peter 4:9). After all, nobody likes complainers.

Neither of these radical calls will succeed without pursuing our own personal holiness, “We cannot give to he who we do not know,” Bishop Frank Joseph Caggiano said, addressing a crowd at an evangelisation conference. “And well before it’s anything we do out there, it’s the type of person we are in Christ.”

After all, no one is more radical than Jesus Christ.